Here’s How One Professor Chose to Protest Texas’ Campus Carry Law

This past week, community and junior colleges in Texas joined the list of places CCW permit holders can carry their firearms – and one professor is making his thoughts on the matter known in a rather interesting way.

On Tuesday morning, the day the law went into effect, Alamo Community College adjunct professor Charles Keith Smith walked into his Physical Geography class wearing…a bullet proof vest and an army helmet.

I guess we know where he stands.

“This is me making a statement that I do not approve of it [camps carry], and I feel threatened,” Smith told The Ranger.

The science professor doesn’t think students in their early twenties are responsible or mature enough to carry a firearm.

He also believes that firearms could make an otherwise common situation dangerous. If you don’t know the mental stability of someone, you could easily set them off, he argues. And with a gun involved, things could become deadly.

“I had a fistfight break out in class over seating two years ago,” Smith recalled. “What if a student gets an F in my class? It is automatically my fault.”

Smith goes on to note that “a shooting can happen with or without the concealed carry. “But,” he says, “you have got the person who has the gun, and they do not have to drive home to get the gun or have time to think about it. They have a weapon on the spot. It is intimidating.”

Doesn’t Smith realize that if a student is that unstable, that if they’re going to become murderous over a grade or a chair, that that student certainly isn’t going to obey some rule that says gun aren’t allowed on campus?

Smith was right when he said a shooting can happen whether or not concealed carry is permitted on campus. The only difference is whether or not those being attacked have a way to defend themselves.